


Where's Beverly?

by BobRussellFan



Series: Where's Beverly? [4]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Gen, OCs - Freeform, this is a nice one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-19 11:56:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22610533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BobRussellFan/pseuds/BobRussellFan
Summary: In 2399, Beverly Crusher helps her granddaughter with her homework.
Relationships: Romeo/Juliet
Series: Where's Beverly? [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1657300
Comments: 5
Kudos: 13





	Where's Beverly?

It had been a long, exhausting night at the Great Lakes Regional Medical Center, even though its director spent most of her time in an office rather than with patients these days. But a doctor's work is never done. 

“Gramma!” Beverly opened her eyes to see a familiar face smiling at her. “Hi!” 

With a tired smile, she propped herself up, brushing her golden-red hair back out of her face, and gently chided, “Olivia, you are supposed to knock before you come in.” 

“Sorry,” said the blond twelve-year-old, though she didn’t look too chastened by her grandmother’s words. 

Olivia had a way of carrying unusual things when she showed up at Beverly’s door, and today was no exception - clutched in her hands were a pen and paper set that would have been new around the time Beverly’s great-great-great-grandmother had fought in the Eugenics Wars. “Can you help me with my homework?” 

“Eventually,” said Beverly, rising out of bed, glad she’d slept in her full-length silk pajamas the night before. “First I am going to have a shower, and you are going to make breakfast.” 

“Okay, okay. Chocolate croissants and hot cocoa?” Olivia beamed at Beverly in that smile nobody could resist - much less her doting grandmother. 

Beverly always worried that her granddaughters weren’t growing up with the kind of practical skills she’d learned as a child - but Olivia was safe enough in a house still equipped with replicators here up on the blue waters of Lake Erie. Beverly left Olivia to her work while she stepped into the sonic shower that - even several years after retirement, he had to admit she preferred after several decades of service to Starfleet. 

Dressed in a comfortable blue sweater against the chill of an Ohio winter, Beverly stepped out of the bathroom to find both her grandchildren in the dining room. “-were you bothering Grandma again?” Jacqueline Crusher was taller than her sister and with her dark hair and height resembled her father (and late grandfather) in much the way that Olivia looked like their mother. 

“My grandchildren are _never_ bothering me,” Beverly assured them both warmly, giving them both a warm hug as Olivia glared at her sister. There was, just as promised, hot cocoa and chocolate-filled croissants - as usual, Jacqueline had left a candy cane in hers. “Do your parents know you’re here?” 

“Well yeah,” said Jackie affectionately as she smiled at her grandma. “Dad says hi, Mom says she’ll be stopping by as soon as they’re done with work.” 

“All right then. Now before we talk about your studies,” she said, smiling, “I want to eat delicious food and talk to my grandchildren about what they’re up to these days.” 

It sounded like things hadn’t changed that much from their last conversation; Olivia was still struggling just a little bit with her studies but was doing well in competitions, Jackie was excelling just as much as Wes and Amanda ever had in their learning - and probably was going to be ready for harder stuff soon. 

Picking up on the tense dynamics between the sisters today, Bev hmmed as they finished their stories. “Jackie, can you give us some privacy for a moment? I told your sister I’d help her with her studies.” 

“Okay, okay, I get it,” said Jackie, adjusting her black and blue outfit for a moment before she stood up. “I’ll be riiight back,” she said with a wink, walking towards the door before popping out of the room entirely. 

“Is she still giving you a hard time?” asked Beverly gently as she looked at Olivia. 

“She says I’ll never get anywhere if I don’t start learning better,” Olivia lamented, looking down at her paper and pen. “Mom and Dad must think I’m _stupid!_” Her cheeks colored, and for a moment it looked like she was about to cry. 

“Hey. Hey!” Bev hugged her lightly. “You are not stupid, and your parents don’t think you’re stupid either. Your father was just telling me how much he liked your experiment with the Antares Maelstrom the other day. Learning differently does not mean there’s anything wrong with you.” 

Olivia didn’t look entirely convinced - but she looked reassured, anyway, and sometimes that was all you could expect with unhappy twelve year olds. “My mom took me to see a production of Romeo and Juliet,” she said, “and I’m supposed to write a report on it - but I don’t understand it at all.” 

She _is_ a little young for Shakespeare, Beverly thought, but what she said was, “Well, okay, we can go over it together if you want.” It had been a long time since she’d been to see any Shakespearean play (fourteen years, if you got right down to it), but she remembered the basics from her literature minor of many, many, many, many years earlier. “And I think I have a holo of it in my library computer…” 

“No, _Nana_,” said Olivia, shaking her head. “Not like _that_. I just…” She threw up her hands, almost losing the pencil. “Why do they have to _die_?” she demanded of her grandmother and the universe at large. “It’s so stupid!” 

Beverly considered that, then said the best thing to get a child talking, “What you mean?” 

“Shakespeare spends all this time talking about how much they _love_ each other - but then boom, everything they’re doing fails and they’re dead!” Her face wrinkled up in disgust. “Why did he do it that way?” 

Beverly hesitated, the fingers of her right hand curled around her cocoa mug. “You’re a romantic, sweetie.” She smiled at Olivia. “But sometimes romances don’t work out. That’s just the way it goes.” 

“That’s dumb,” opined Olivia. “Mom and Dad have a great romance, you and Grandpa had a great romance, Mom’s mom and dad had a great romance. Why does Shakespeare have to be so depressing all the time?” 

“Well, he was trying to send a message, not be realistic,” Beverly offered. “The play doesn’t say love is bad, right? It just says that thoughtless, selfish love is bad. That there are more important things in life than that kind of...passion.” She shrugged her thin shoulders. “Like family.” 

Olivia frowned. "That's not what I meant. Why do they just...have to _die_?" She gave her grandmother a long, searching look. "I thought it was going to be a nice story, without any gross sex because it was so old, but they just...died, and they were gone!" She rubbed her eyes, her voice thickening. "It's stupid! It's so...stupid." 

"You're right," Beverly admitted. "It is stupid. But it's part of the condition of being alive." 

Olivia shot her a look. "Now you sound like my uncle." 

Beverly smiled tightly around her cup. "Is that so? Well, I've certainly...disagreed with your uncle before, but-" She took a breath, then said, "Imagine - no, think of a world where nothing ever dies. No people, no animals, no plants, no cells. Where everything just grows and grows, forever. That's not really living. You know what that's called." 

"That's...cancer!" 

"That's right," said Beverly with a nod. "Sometimes things have to end so other things can begin." She closed her eyes and for a moment saw the brightness of stars against the darkness of space. "It's not fair, that things have to end. But it's how the universe works, at least for us mortals. In the end, me, your uncle Will and Aunt Deanna, your grandfather...we get what everyone else gets. A lifetime." 

Olivia frowned again, but in that thoughtful way that meant she was getting an idea. “Hmmm…” She took a moment or two and started to write, pen scratching. “I think I’ve got it!” Smiling to leave her to her work, Beverly stood up and cleared the table - leaving Olivia her chocolate, of course. 

Olivia was about halfway down the page when Jackie reappeared by the door. “Hey Olivia!” she said, holding something between her hands. “Guess what!” 

“Not now!” Olivia hissed. “I’m working!” 

Jackie sighed with an air of injured dignity and said, “Okaaay, I love you too!” She headed over to where Beverly was standing by the window and stood on tiptoes to whisper “Can you give this to her when she’s done?” 

She opened her hand to reveal a bird’s nest - Beverly didn’t immediately recognize the small, colored eggs inside, but she knew Olivia _loved_ birds, and had raised several from an egg in the last couple of years. “Carolina parakeets,” she confided. “I picked them up while she and Mom were back in the 17th century. They’re her favorites.” 

“I’m sure she’ll love them,” Beverly promised, “but you should hold onto them until she’s done, don’t you think?” With an elaborate sigh (she really was turning into a teenager), Jackie waved her hand and made the nest disappear in a flash of white light that Beverly had never quite gotten used to. 

“Okay. Tell her I’ll be back with Dad at Romano’s Star when she’s done.” She hugged Beverly. “Love you, Grandma!” And then she vanished again, popping right out of the room with a flash of displacement more like her father’s than her mother’s. 

“Love you-ah.” With a small sigh, Beverly sipped her cocoa and watched Olivia flip the page over and start writing on the back. 

Olivia shot a glance her grandmother’s way and commented, “She’s just like that.”

“Do your work,” chided Beverly with an affectionate smile. “I understand there may be a reward waiting when you’re done.” As she sat down next to Olivia at the table, carefully doing the uninteresting work of reading a Padd rather than something that would distract Olivia, she looked at her hard-working grand-daughter, thought of her son and his wife and their impossible adventures, and then around at the home that was the one stable thing in all their lives, the one she deserved after a lifetime in space. 

There was no place she’d rather be.

**Author's Note:**

> Wesley and Amanda's daughters are named after his father and her actress from her TNG appearance. 
> 
> Beverly lives in Ohio, where Gates McFadden is from. 
> 
> Romano's Star is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romano%27s_Star 
> 
> Olivia's uncle isn't thrilled about this situation but at least his son has contemporaries now. 
> 
> Jackie's blue and black outfit is a science officer's uniform from the Starfleet of 2399. She gets that from both sides of the family.


End file.
